NLV bicycle officer shoots, kills motorist

Keith Paul

Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000 | 11:33 a.m.

A North Las Vegas Police bicycle officer late Tuesday shot and killed the driver of a car he claimed was accelerating at him and his partner, marking the second time in less than a week a person has died by police gunfire.

Two bicycle officers were patrolling a neighborhood under construction in the area of Carey Avenue and Clayton Street about 11:30 p.m. when they spotted two people sitting in a parked car. The officers approached them, but the driver, 36-year-old Ernest Williams Jr. of Las Vegas, drove off, said Lt. Art Redcay, a department spokesman.

Williams drove down a dead-end street -- Thunderstorm Way -- with the two officers in pursuit on bicycles. He then made a U-turn and headed back towards the officers, police said.

The officer closest to the car fired two shots, Redcay said. The 26-year-old officer has been a member of the North Las Vegas department for three years.

"The officer feared for his life and the life of his partner," Redcay said. "Our policy is that you have the right to protect yourself from a deadly threat whether it's a car, a gun or a guy swinging a baseball bat."

The officers avoided the car, which continued traveling through a vacant lot and stopped after going over a cement building pad, police said.

"The area was well lighted and there was no question they were officers," Redcay said.

The two officers called for backup and an ambulance and then began yelling for the two occupants to get out of the car. A woman inside the car said she had been shot and needed help, Redcay said.

The 26-year-old woman got out of the car and went to the officers, but Williams remained in the car. SWAT officers arrived minutes after the shooting and approached the car and found Williams dead with a gunshot wound in the upper torso, police said.

The woman was taken to University Medical Center and treated for a gunshot wound in her arm, police said.

The two bicycle officers were patrolling the neighborhood after more 40 reports of burglaries from houses under constructions, Redcay said.

Police questioned the woman and released her. Redcay would not say what Williams and the woman were doing in the area.

The officer who fired the shots was put on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of a Clark County coroner's inquest into Williams' death. The name of the officer will not be released until 48 hours after the shooting, which is department policy.

Williams' death was the second time in a week a North Las Vegas Police officer has killed a suspect.

On Aug. 30 narcotics officers Wayne Blackard, 28, and Christopher Corrado, 30, shot and killed Johnnie Lee Weatherspoon, 54, during a drug raid inside a Saratoga Palms apartment, 2175 Las Vegas Blvd. North.

Weatherspoon and the officers exchanged shots. Weatherspoon fired four bullets and the officers fired their assault rifles multiple times, police said. Weatherspoon suffered fatal injuries in the gun battle and died at University Medical Center.

One bullet hit Blackard in his left hand and another was stopped by his protective vest in the groin area. Blackard underwent reconstructive surgery and was released.

"These were both isolated incidents that had no link to each other," Redcay said of the two officer-involved shootings. "One was a well-planned search warrant, and the other was a suspicious vehicle in a construction site that had a lot of recent burglaries."

Before the two recent deaths, the last North Las Vegas Police officer-involved shooting where the suspect died was on July 15, 1998.